Bluesky-Walter Graff Weblog

Webnesia is the term I use to describe how companies market “new methods” based on ideas that are old, yet make them sound revolutionary. Take for instance behavioral marketing, or the privacy-invasive method of figuring out what sites and trends a person makes online and supplying them with an ad that might target them better. It sounds revolutionary but it really isn’t. It’s done all the time in every form of advertising, only difference is with the web it seems pretty cool. How is it done all the time? Ever watch the national news? All those pharmaceutical ads target the 60+ year olds. That is because the average age of the people watching national news are those over 50. Ever watch American Idol and see an ad for ring tones? Wow! an ad designed to target 20 sometimes. How ingenious. Considering how many 20 somethings are watching that show, doesn’t it make sense? But wait you say, what about the 40 year olds who watch American Idol? Well there are also ads targeted to them. With television you have all demographics watching so you can target different groups, but can’t have a one on one relationship like you can with a person sitting at there computer. Big deal! Advertising that works simply rings a bell with me. Sit 100 people my age down and show them a commercial and some will like it, some will not care. Even if you target specific ads to types of viewers you know are watching at that time. And now, the latest talk is of behavioral marketing which sounds really big and scientific and says that when you go to a web page, cookies reveal the types of sites you visit and give you an ad appropriate to what you seem to like. Amazing! How new!

And what does a company that sells behavioral marketing offer to entice us with this ‘revelation’? A recent email of “trends” sent to a friend by one of these marketing groups shows a chart of what percentage of internet users by age are willing to pay attention to advertising that is personalized to their age group. And it reveals that folks of particular age groups will tend to watch ads targeted at them. WOW! How do they come up with this cutting edge stuff?  You mean if you show an ad for Acne cream, a girl who is 20 will tend to pay attention more than a women who is 50? WOW, that’s amazing (snicker).

Well… It’s a bunch of poppycock. First off, these companies that send these earth shattering cutting edge trends are the same companies that sell such software and marketing and want you to know it’s the ‘wave of the future’. Yea sort of like a car dealer telling me about cars and why I need them. Of course folks are willing to pay attention to ads that are targeted to them. And guess what? Younger people who are more computer savvy and more on the web are more interested in ads on the web targeted at them than folks who don’t know what the ‘delete’ key does. Do you think a fifteen year old would pay more attention to an add for Xbox over Geritol, or that you (if you were 55) might pay attention to an ad offering a CD of music by great bands of the 60’s over an ad for Ipod headphones? Whether it be on TV, or on the web, that is a given. Somehow these “cutting edge marketers” like the fact that you can target one person with an ad and think this makes the difference.  It might, but if the ad doesn’t relate to them and what they are looking for, then it matters little, just as it always has. Revolutionary cutting edge marketing? Na, just common sense.